Crusader Corner: General McChrystal Gives 4 Tips On How to Fight and Win Against ISIS

You would know that some of the best, most practical advice about fighting and WINNING against ISIS comes from one of the only Generals to be fired for criticizing the Obama White House. Personally, I like McChrystal. What he accomplished with JSOC was extraordinary. The man got results. My only complaint with him is how he handled the Pat Tillman incident; Could have been done much better.-SF

At a time when our political leaders freely admit that they don’t have a plan to deal with ISIS, or try to tell the nation that we’re somehow “not at war” with a de facto state that our President claims we’re nonetheless going to destroy, it’s deeply refreshing to hear from someone who not only understands how to defeat rabid Islamist murderers, but has actually done it.

 

In a recent interview with CNN, General Stanley McChrystal, who formerly commanded both the Ranger Regiment and the brutally effective Joint Special Operations Command, outlined several key points that I hope our political and military leaders paid attention to.  If they’re serious about getting after ISIS, they should have McChrystal’s number on speed dial.

I personally served under McChrystal’s command many times in both Iraq and Afghanistan and have seen the results of the kind of actions he advocates.  Although I have’t worked for him in years, in my mind he still possesses the ultimate credentials:  his method of fighting terrorists works.

Below are four excerpts from McChrystal’s interview, to which I’ve added some personal commentary.

If you really want to understand what it takes to defeat terrorists, you don’t listen to the feckless empty suits who would rather launch hashtag campaigns than black helicopters—you listen to real warriors like Stanley McChrystal.

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1)  “The effectiveness of a group is not its numbers, it’s how effectively it’s connected.” 
This was certainly true of JSOC, whose relatively small size belied the organization’s enormous impact on the battlefield in Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other locations around the world.  McChrystal correctly recognized that small groups of specially selected, highly trained, and well-supported operators, backed by superb intelligence, could be entrusted to do what needs to be done in a complex, protracted, and often bloody conflict.  JSOC wasn’t a large organization when McChrystal took over as commander, but because he was effective where others weren’t, he kept getting more and more resources and achieving better and better results.

A key aspect of the success of McChyrstal’s plan was his emphasis on building a network to defeat a network.  Unlike many others in the Special Operations community, McChrystal was willing to reach out to other units, other services, other agencies, and even other countries to put a team together that used precision intelligence to drive operational and tactical decisions that resulted in operations at a pace faster than the enemy could withstand.  Units under McChrystal’s command would crack open enemy networks and exploit them up and down the chain until those organizations were utterly exhausted and completely neutralized.  Then they would move on to the next one.  This is the kind of mindset, commitment, and persistence that it will take to defeat ISIS.

What was true of JSOC then is true of ISIS now.  ISIS is very well connected… at least, it’s better connected than the governments and other groups it is fighting.  No group is better than JSOC at breaking up that connective tissue that allows terrorist groups to function.  Getting after the way the group functions, rather than obsessing over how big it is or whether it is “JV or varsity,” will give real results.  What kind of results?   You can hear it for yourself from no less than the Presidential level: “Listen: JSOC Is Awesome!”

Read the Remainder at Havok Journal